a gaming club in southern NH

Huzzah 2011 – Part One, Basic Impetus Tournament

Wow – What can I say. The folks at Huzzah, the Maine Historical Wargamers Association, and all of the people that ran games
out did themselves again this year. If your a fan of war gaming you should really go to this event. Chris and I attended friday and saturday this year and I would guess that next year we’ll do the whole weekend.

~ Basic Impetus Tourney – Friday

As many of you know that follow this blog (all 2 of you?) I spent a good deal of time over the last month building an army for the Basic Impetus tournament and it was Friday morning first thing that the mighty army of Eumenes (one of Alexander’s successors after his death,) took the field. Chris brought a 5th century Pictish army to the field.

The Tournament was a three round affair and though we got started a little later than planned, the games began to roll by quick.

My First game was against a SARGONID ASSYRIAN 680-609 BC army. This army has a unit of chariots, some cavalry, and some descent infantry and missile troops… and a couple of flanking skirmishers. I rolled as the defender so I set up as I had planned, Heavy Cavalry to the Left Flank, Medium on the right. My Phalanx’s of Pikemen in the center, screened by the skirmishers, and the medium infantry in reserve. Solid plan I thought. To my left a gentle hill and to my right, closer to the Assyrians, a steep hill (we ruled it impassible.) From my left to right, my opponent had set up his skirmishers, missile troops, guards, and chariots. To my extreme right he set his cavalry in route around the impassible terrain in an attempt to flank me.

The First Moves

The game started out good as both sides advanced. I sent my medium cavalry out to meet his soon to be flanking horses. As we closed in on range he began toopen fire with missile weapons and soon brought disorder throughout my ranks. Soon my Skirmishers fled, my heavy cavalry suffered great losses and did not move forward (I wanted to try to remove the disorder marker,) but my medium cavalry took a great stand against his cavalry and held them to a choke point where he could not advance further.

There used to be some Cavalry to the left - but at least the Chariots are avoiding the Pikes.

By the time all of my pikemen reached his lines they were weak and disordered and in no time, the army fled the battle to return again next round. I had managed to not take out a single unit of my enemy so my score was now a whopping – Zero.

As the second game rolled around, the 6th player arrived so we now had a third table playing albeit a game behind. Chris’s picts had lost their grueling battle at the river so as it turns out we fought each other next.

Chri's Picts vs. The Persians - I managed not to get any photos of our battle

I swapped sides of the table I had just lost on, but now there was a pesky lump of trees added to my right flank (which had been added between rounds.) I had the honor of setting up first yet again and now that I had a much smaller area to do so in I placed my phalanx of pikes in the center as before with the skirmishers screening yet again. My Heavy cavalry however set up to head left and move to flank around the impassible terrain such as my last opponent tried while the medium set up in reserve hoping to punch out once the infantry pushed past the tree-line. Chris as the attacker sent everything in at me in a reverse V. As the game began and I struggled to get out of my deployment area, the Picts came barreling down upon me fast. It was a short and bloody battle as his troops converged upon mine. Neither Cavalry could get in position – Big mistake and soon I was crushed. In this battle however I was able to score some casualties and brought my new total to – 24 Points.

So… a bit frustrated I examined the flaws in my tactics as we took a break for lunch in hope to re-group the troops and pull out a win against my next, and last opponent – the Romans. (Late Imperial I believe…)

Some of the great miniatures at the tourney

Well, with plan in hand we returned from the King of Burgers and lo and behold, my third opponent had left for home unexpected to him (I do hope that everything is alright.) Unfortunately for him, this was the same gentlemen who had shown up late so he only was able to play one game. I was offered a game against Chris’s first opponent who was now set to battle the other gentleman, and tourney organizer who also had only one game under his belt however I declined… after all, the smack talk between these two guys on the Maine Wargammers Forums now needed to be settled once, and for all. A third game would have been fun, but the gauntlet had been thrown weeks ago and I was not going to get in the way (and, I had hoped to learn something more about the tactics of Basic Impetus.)

More great miniatures

So in the end, Chris ended up winning his third game and placed Second overall missing first by only a few points. [When I get the final results, I’ll post them below in the comments.]

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Dan,
Great report! Mind if I use this to send to Lorenzo, the creator of Impetus? I am doing a write up of the tournament for him.
I am sorry your army didn’t get a chance for a third round. If we had a chance to play I’m sure you could have walked away with a victory. My Persians are not exactly strong. We will have to get together for a game sometime. I am in the North Conway area and can make a drive down your way at some point.
Ken

Ken, Feel free to send this off, that would be great. (Now that I think of it, I think I did post the link on the Impetus forums.)

As far as the third game goes – I’m not so sure about getting a win on this side. To be honest I was shooting for 25 points (one more than the last game.) To me though it was important to see the grudge match and it gave Jim a second game as well.

Being able to watch the other games though in that last round gave me some insight on tactics of this game, and the period in general.

We’ll have to get together sometime for a game. We have a FLGS in Manchester which would cut down 20 min for you on travel time and another in Londonderry (which is set up a bit better for mini gaming imo.)

I could certainly get Chris out there and we think we may have piqued a bit more interest in a couple of others.